Vancouver roundtable wrestles with copyright reform Round 2
Every week Techvibes will be republishing an article from Business in Vancouver newspaper.
This article was originally published in issue #1031 - July 28 - August 3, 2009.
A roundtable in Vancouver last week involving representatives from a number of industries kicked off the latest round of public consultation on copyright reform in Canada.
Judging by the many and disparate views expressed at the invite-only event, the reformation of copyright laws remains a contentious issue for Canadians and Canadian businesses.
Held at the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch, the roundtable began the federal government’s second bid in as many years to update the laws that govern the way Canadians consume and distribute creative content such as movies, music and video games.
This time around, however, the public is having its say. The federal government was widely criticized last year for not adequately consulting Canadians before drafting its copyright reform legislation, Bill C-61, which died last September when the federal election was called.
Industry roundtables and public town halls are being held across Canada between now and September to allow Canadians to weigh-in on Round 2 of copyright reform.
Bill C-61 was to address shortcomings in Canada’s Copyright Act, which hasn’t been updated since 2001.
Between 2001 and now, bit torrents, social networking and other new and digital media have drastically changed the way consumers interact with media.
The roundtable attendees included representatives from music, movie, television, magazine and broadcasting groups. They debated such issues as how to compensate authors and artists for their creations and the ethics and efficacy of digital rights management (DRM) systems, which are used to prevent consumers from sharing digital content.
Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement is one of two ministers hosting public consultations on the issue. During a press conference following the roundtable, he noted that a major challenge in reforming copyright law is protecting creative content while simultaneously encouraging its production.
“At the end of the day, we have to have content,” said Clement. “It’s OK to have the right to content, but if we don’t have the content being produced, then it will be a pretty vacant right.”
One of the invited attendees, Danielle Parr, executive director of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, told BIV following the roundtable that the video game industry wants legislation to prohibit the manufacturing, importation and sale of “mod chips,” which are used to circumvent digital protection to play pirated video games.
“Right now, you can easily go after a kid in their parents’ basement who has an illegal copy of a video game, but that’s not who we’re interested in,” she said.
“We want to go after people who are profiting from piracy. But right now, as the legislation is written, we don’t have the ability to.”
She also said that video game developers want a “notice and takedown” provision introduced that would allow authorities to expeditiously shut down people who leak pirated video games and other illegally duplicated media.
Parr noted most video games are sold within the first four weeks of their release.
“So if a game is leaked and made available online either before or on the launch date, there’s tremendous harm done in that period,” said Parr.
Geof Glass, a member of Vancouver Fair Copyright (VFC), an informal group that’s against heavy-handed copyright regulations, empathized with the video game industry. But he said that the notice and takedown provision in the U.S. has occasionally been misused as a tool for censorship.
“For many people, removing their Internet access is an extremely harsh penalty. It’s like taking away their car, so we need to make sure that the penalty suits the infringement,” said Glass, a software programmer.
He was invited to the roundtable as a VFC representative.
“The first thing I wanted to get across is that this affects everybody,” said Glass. “The law is incredibly complicated in its implications.”
To highlight just how far-reaching the implications of copyright reform are, Glass presented a scenario where blind citizens could have difficulty converting software to the appropriate formats because of digital locks.
VFC also believes that the blanket application of DRM systems could have negative consequences.
During his five-minute presentation at the roundtable, Glass also brought up the issue of fair dealing, which allows for the use or reproduction of a work for private study, research, criticism, review or news reporting.
The group wants parody and criticism added as exceptions under fair dealing.
Both are allowable in the U.S. under a fair-dealing provision.
